Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football & Sporting Memorabilia

To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
31st October, 1st & 2nd November 2025

Arthur Shrewsbury. Nottinghamshire & England 1875-1902. Single page memorandum handwritten in ink by Shrewsbury on the beautifully ornate official letterhead of Shaw & Shrewsbury’s Nottingham sports equipment business. Dated 27th March 1889, Shrewsbury is writing to a lady in Bedford stating ‘It is with the greatest & most sincere pleasure that I wish all my success to the Bazaar in aid of your Cricket Club’. Very nicely signed ‘Arthur Shrewsbury’. Horizontal and vertical folds with slight splitting to one fold, light tape mark to verso, otherwise in very good condition.
Arthur Shrewsbury was an English cricketer and rugby football administrator. He was widely rated as competing with W. G. Grace for the accolade of best batsman of the 1880s; Grace himself, when asked whom he would most like in his side, replied simply, ‘Give me Arthur’. An opening batsman, Shrewsbury played his cricket for Nottinghamshire and played 23 Test matches for England, organised four tours to Australia in the 1880s with Shaw and Lillywhite, and captained them in seven games. He was the last professional to be England captain until Len Hutton was chosen in 1952. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1890. He also organised the first British Isles rugby tour to Australasia in 1888. An expert on sticky wickets, Shrewsbury topped the first-class batting averages seven times including in 1902, his final season. The following spring, incorrectly believing he had an incurable disease, he shot himself at his sister’s home in Gedling, Nottinghamshire.

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